The Art and Soul of Blade Runner 2049

This is a very well produced book containing excellent set photography, some reproductions of the production design, and many stills from the completed film itself, which is primarily why I wanted it. There are snippets of insight from the director and film makers to accompany the graphics - including a great breakdown of how the cells/interlinked scene came to be - and lots of information about how miniature sets were built and integrated into the CGI. I think Blade Runner 2049 is a special film, and if you want a visual reminder of this astonishingly beautiful work, this book is superb.

Really nice 'coffee table' book, with extra insight into the film itself as well as the behind the scenes work. The book has a lot of exclusinve photos of the sets, actors as well as lovely concept art and drawings. If I have any criticisms they are that the book printing quality is not the best I have seen, and certainly not worthy of the book itself. It's not awful, but for the price and the book status it should have been better. The pages and pictures are not as glossy as they should be, they are a bit too grainy for my liking.The actual quality of the binding and the cover is not in any doubt though, this is not a book that will fall apart. People are rightly complaining about the sticker on the back cover which takes a fair bit of effort to remove, and also there is a curious situation with the 'deluxe' edition of this book. It is way over priced for simply an extra slip-cover and cheap lithograph, so don't waste your money on it. Unless of course you can get one of the deluxe copies that has been signed by Denis and Tanta. That is the thing I don't understand, as they are exactly the same price as the deluxe versions which appear not to have the signatures? What is going on with that I don't know, but www.forbiddenplanet.com has the deluxe with the directors (real) signature, which would make it a real collectors item. Now sold out of course......

In terms of presentation and production quality, this is one of best movie books I’ve ever seen. The whole thing is very nicely made, with high quality colour print throughout, firm binding, and very solid hardback cover. Inside, the design and layout of the book follows the plot of the movie, with pages given over entirely to stills and artwork. The text is informative and concise and, though it doesn’t look as if there’s much text, there is quite a lot to read.The book goes some way to clarifying baffling elements of the movie, such as the boiling pot in the opening scene, why the LA outskirts are a vast dump, why there are so many human orphans, the bright orange landscapes, why Niander is blind, Love’s strange love-hate behaviour, the weird test that K does, why Deckard is in Las Vegas, the blackout (it’s also explained in the Blu Ray extras), and so on. It also deals with the casual attitudes to sex that form the backdrop of many scenes. The movie features many objectified, submissive and trivial women. The book reveals that in 2049 the writers supposed this treatment also applied to men. Alas, the male half of the idea got lost along the way, with the men keeping their clothes on, not being prostitutes, and not being subservient and sexually permissive androids. This issue has been cited as the main reason why the move suffered at the box office. Understandably, many female moviegoers did not find this engaging viewing.The only problem with the book is the picture captions, which are very small! They are almost unreadable. For some of them, I resorted to a smart phone camera to zoom in so I could see the text. That’s ridiculous and should not be necessary. If they’d kept the caption text the same size as the main body text then all would be well.Overall, this is a visually stunning book about a visually stunning movie. It explains some of the misconceptions people had about various parts of the movie, fills in much background, and explains some of the extraordinary special effects. If you liked the movie, then this is a must-have. If you didn’t, then this book is unlikely to change your view.

It's a good companion to the movie but doesn't go into too much depth which is frustrating. The photos are good. However what let's it down is the quality of the print. I had two pages that had been scored with a knife and the book is not bound exactly in the middle. It is nowhere near a Taschen in terms of quality. So deduct a star

There’s some great and interesting narrative in the book which fans will appreciate. I was however expecting high definition and beautiful images given the Oscar winning cinematography and most pictures are grainy or blurred and generally underwhelming. The reason I bought the book was for the images and it doesn’t deliver at all. Shame